DSLRs Get Smarter With the Flash-Dock

It’s hard to not call it a match made in heaven – combining the venerable smartphone with a powerful DSLR camera. The makers of the Flash-Dock are playing matchmaker, giving photography enthusiasts a new way to get more out of their gadgets.

The Flash-Dock doesn’t actually connect the two devices electronically. What it does do is securely hold the user’s smartphone in the cobra flash socket on the top of most DSLR cameras. The benefits of just having a smartphone in close proximity to a DSLR (in a hands-free way) may be worth the asking price for many. Those using Eye-Fi SD cards will now have a way to instantly send pictures from their DSLR to their smartphone using the Wi-Fi capabilities of those SD cards. That will allow DSLR users the same convenient, quick access to sharing that smartphone photographers enjoy. That could be a boon for mobile journalists using expensive equipment.

Geotagging is also made a little easier. Users can either have their smartphones transmit GPS information to the camera via Bluetooth, or save .gpx files on your smartphone, which can be merged with photo descriptions to allow for geotagging.

A few apps are out there that can help photographers out, too, like a level app that can help to make sure the camera isn’t slightly sideways when taking pictures.